Audio and video text alternatives
Using audio and video text alternatives is one of the 10 fundamental concepts that can support digital accessibility in all of your content.
Providing text alternatives for videos and audio files is essential to ensure access for everyone. Text alternatives provide the same information as what is shown on screen and spoken aloud in a multimedia file. In addition to ensuring access for people with disabilities, text alternatives can help people gain a deeper understanding of the material.
Text alternatives for multimedia include captions, transcripts, and audio descriptions.
Captions are a text version of the audio content within a video, synchronized with the action on screen.
A transcript is a text version of media content, most commonly used for audio-only media.
Audio descriptions are additional audio that describes and gives context for essential visual information shown on screen. This can be a separate audio track or part of the main narration track.
Professional captioning
UW–Madison negotiated discounted rates with 3Play Media and Verbit. For more information, visit Captioning, transcription, and audio description vendor rate comparison.
DIY captioning
Auto-generated caption tools are increasing in quality and accuracy. Some video hosting services, such as YouTube and Kaltura, support DIY captioning or the inclusion of separate caption files. Some web conferencing platforms allow you to download a transcript or caption file from a recorded event.
How to apply machine captioning in Kaltura
The multimedia accessibility guide has full details on approaches to captioning, pricing, and platforms.
- Add captions to your videos through whatever platform you are publishing in
- Create a transcript for audio content
- Describe visual content when recording video narration, or
- Provide an audio description track for prerecorded videos if important visual content isn’t described
Fundamentals
Download the checklist
Download our digital accessibility fundamentals checklist PDF to help you keep track of the core principles of accessibility while creating and editing digital resources.
The Center for User Experience
At the Center for User Experience, we are committed to working with you to make digital spaces more accessible, usable and inclusive for all students, faculty and staff at UW–Madison. We help the university follow its Digital Accessibility Policy by offering free evaluation and consultation services to all UW–Madison community members. For guidance on complying with digital accessibility requirements, visit Digital accessibility and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Get in touch
- Meet with us: Book a quick chat with one of our team members to ask any questions you have.
- Start a project with us: We support accessible design and development. Fill out our Let’s Connect form to begin working with us on your project or to request an accessibility evaluation.
- Email us: Not sure if you’re ready to meet? Email us to start talking and figure out what to do next.